Hi all, happy Tuesday! Crypto extended last week’s divergence on Monday, with BTC and most sectors moving higher even as equities softened. Crypto-linked equities led the move, while AI remained under pressure. 

Today, we also dive into PUMP: up 50% on the month, through its first unlock, and once again sparking talk that the trenches are back. We look at whether the fundamentals justify the move and what the market is actually pricing.

Monday was broadly risk-on for crypto even as traditional markets softened. The 2025 Crypto Equity Cohort (+5.2%), DEXs (+2.7%), and Oracle (+2.4%) led the sector board, while Bittensor Ecosystem (-2.1%), AI (-1.4%), and Modular (-0.9%) lagged. BTC gained 1% as the S&P 500 fell -0.3%. If sustained, this would extend the divergence highlighted yesterday, when BTC was the only major benchmark to finish last week in the green.

All five of the 2025 Crypto Equity Cohort constituents closed higher: GEMI (+6.0%), CRCL (+5.6%), FIGR (+4.7%), GLXY (+4.6%) and BLSH (+2.4%). The likely catalyst came from Washington, where progress on the CLARITY Act’s merged Senate text, including progress with the White House on ethics language, moved the bill closer to a potential floor vote before the August recess. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has targeted the week of July 20 for action.

The bid extended to crypto treasury companies, including SBET (+8.5%), BTBT (+7.7%), BMNR (+6.6%) and MSTR (+4.6%). Part of the strength may reflect capital rotating out of crowded AI positions and into names that have significantly underperformed over the past year.

Beyond DEXs and Oracle, Perps (+2.3%), L2s (+2.2%) and DeFi (+2.1%) also outperformed, while Revenue Leaders gained 1.9%. We also saw the rotation back toward Solana continue, although momentum eased. Solana Eco gained 1.2%, while Launchpad slowed from 3.9% on Sunday to 0.7% on Monday as the PUMP rally moderated. 

The broadening of market leadership beyond last week’s PUMP-led move is constructive. Continued policy momentum and widespread gains, combined with signs that capital may be rotating out of crowded AI positions, would strengthen the case for a more durable reallocation toward crypto. The past two rallies have been led by different parts of the market, and whether revenue-generating sectors can sustain their leadership or whether the next leg comes from elsewhere is worth watching from here. 

— Joe

PUMP: Legitimate Concerns, Overstated Decline

There has been plenty of talk about the return of the trenches, and the shift in sentiment is becoming difficult to ignore. PUMP, the clearest liquid proxy for the sector, is up roughly 35% over the past week and 50% over the past month.

The timing is notable. PUMP rallied through its first team and investor unlocks, a cliff release of roughly 29% of circulating supply in mid-July, suggesting the event removed a known overhang rather than introducing meaningful new selling pressure.

Many argue that PUMP trades at a discount because of concerns around revenue durability. The data supports the concern, though not the most bearish version of it. Trailing 30-day revenue sits at approximately $29M, an annualized run rate of roughly $348M. Pump remains one of the highest-revenue applications in crypto, but roughly 80% below its February 2025 peak.

Q2 revenue declined 43% year-over-year and 26% quarter-over-quarter, and while July is pacing modestly ahead, there is little evidence of a sharp turnaround. Pump remains highly exposed to speculative activity and likely deserves a lower multiple than businesses with more stable fee streams.

The terminal-decline thesis, however, looks overstated. Monthly revenue has remained within a $21M to $58M range for more than a year, and PumpSwap and Terminal now contribute approximately 36% of the total. Pump remains cyclical, but it is no longer entirely dependent on the launchpad.

The buyback yield is where the discount gets interesting. At the trailing 30-day pace, Pump is repurchasing and burning approximately $152M of PUMP on an annualized basis, equivalent to a 12.7% yield on outstanding market cap and an 8.9% on FDV.

Since late April, those buybacks have run through an irreversible smart contract: Pump halved the allocation from 100% of revenue to 50%, burned all previously repurchased tokens (roughly $370M worth, 36% of circulating supply), and locked the new commitment in place for a year. The move was intended to reduce concerns around discretionary buyback allocations while preserving the team's ability to reinvest revenue in growth. 

Taken together, PUMP's valuation looks like a bet on continued revenue decline. A durable >10% annualized buyback yield would almost certainly justify a re-rating, and after twelve months in which revenue has held above a $21M floor, that is a debatable assumption.

The signals worth watching are whether Robinhood Chain and other new venues pull memecoin volume away from Pump, whether PumpSwap and Terminal keep growing their share of the mix, and whether monthly revenue holds its floor or breaks below it.

— Carlos

Solana Q2 Token Holder Report

Blockworks Advisory published its Q2 2026 Solana report, arguing that the network showed its strongest evidence yet of durable demand beyond memecoins. Tokenized-asset volume reached a record $5.8B, led by $4.8B in tokenized equities, while Solana maintained roughly 97% market share in that category and SOL spot ETPs recorded $120M in net inflows despite broader crypto fund outflows.

At the same time, the speculative side continued to reset, with REV down 43%, application revenue down 31%, and DEX volume down 44%, though June activity rebounded as tokenized assets accelerated. The forward outlook centers on Alpenglow, in-protocol fee sharing through SIMD-123, and proposals to increase SOL burn and accelerate disinflation, which together could strengthen both network performance and tokenholder value accrual. 

The Machiavellian Case for Decentralized Networks

Omid Malekan argues that decentralization is not one feature among many but the only property that lets a blockchain survive long-term capture by corporations, governments, and incumbents. From a “Machiavellian” view, any network that settles meaningful value will attract attempts to control it, so permissioned chains, concentrated validator sets, and L2s with trusted sequencers are ultimately naive designs that depend on powerful actors remaining benevolent.

He frames enterprise blockchains as especially weak: less efficient than traditional databases and less secure than genuinely open networks, while also giving incumbents tools to preserve their own market power. The conclusion is that despite its costs and flaws, Ethereum’s openness and neutrality make it better positioned than corporate alternatives because assets will eventually migrate toward the infrastructure that is hardest to capture.